


I can't get over you, (you left your mark on me)

by Squeaky



Series: The Soulmate Series (no one asked for) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies to the NYPD for probably butchering their internal processes, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, I hope?, Just a gun shot wound, M/M, OTP: Till the End of the Line, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Some Humor, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeaky/pseuds/Squeaky
Summary: Ever since Bucky Barnes made a terrible choice when he was seventeen, he's kept the Name on his wrist hidden and the fact that he's already met his soulmate a secret from everyone -- including the soulmate himself. It's mostly worked for the last fifteen years.However a routine night at his job as a paramedic with the FDNY becomes infinitely more complicated when Bucky actually runs into his soulmate, and finds that all the feelings he's been ignoring for years are still there between them. Still just as strong as ever.Bucky is lost and confused, unsure if he should confess everything to his soulmate, or try to go on pretending that they're not destined for each other. But before Bucky can decide, his soulmate is shot. And suddenly Bucky may not get the chance to make any decision at all...





	I can't get over you, (you left your mark on me)

**Author's Note:**

> As always I want and need to thank my wonderful bestie [ Taste_is_Sweet ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet). Her love, encouragement and plot advice is the reason why this story exists. She also canceled her weekend plans to beta this story for me. If that ain't love, I don't know what love is
> 
> The title is flatteringly borrowed from the deceptively profound[ Hold On, We're Going Home](https://youtu.be/GxgqpCdOKak) by Drake. The video is a really bad 80s action flic but the song is lit.
> 
> This is the second story in my abuse-of-tropes Stucky soulmate series. Clearly I love this shit.
> 
> * * *

"Your cop is here." 

Bucky cracked his eyes open as he lifted his head off of the back of the chair. He was sitting in the report room of the emergency department of _Maria Stark Memorial_ , wishing he could actually sleep.

"Not my cop," he muttered and let his head sag back down.

His partner Sam took the seat beside him, purposely spreading his legs just wide enough that his knee jammed into Bucky's thigh. "You don't know that." 

Bucky made a face at him and sat up, pointedly crossing his leg so his heavily booted foot thumped against Sam's shin. "Yeah, I do."

Sam laughed, but rubbed at the place where Bucky's foot had connected. "Don't. This is my only clean uniform." 

"Don't let Captain Hill hear you say that. She'll check your locker for your spare, and then where will you keep all your porn?" 

Sam grinned. "She won't check my locker. She loves me." 

"Bullshit. No one loves you." 

"Speaking of both bullshit and love," Sam said and Bucky groaned, knowing where the conversation was going. "Why is it that you're so sure that Officer Hottie isn't yours?"

"Why are you so keen on this?" 

"Because we've been partners for over three years, and in that whole time I've never seen you without your bracelet," Sam said, suddenly totally serious. "I mean, I know that the Names are private and all, but we've been friends for _three_ years and you've never even hinted at what hers might be. So either you know the officer's name and it doesn't match, or you're just too chicken shit to check. So, which is it?"

Bucky automatically wrapped his hand around the bracelet on his left wrist as Sam spoke. They were both wearing the silver cuff-style bracelets issued to paramedics by the FDNY to cover their Names. They were metal to make them easy to clean and had the 'FDNY' logo emblazoned on them. Ten years ago, when Bucky was a newbie and totally into being a New York paramedic, he'd thought receiving the bracelet at graduation was the coolest thing ever. Now he just appreciated it for its practicality and its size. It was wide enough that not even the tip of any of the letters appeared over the edge.

Bucky glanced at Sam's wrist. "You've never told me yours." 

"Lies," Sam said. "I showed you that night at the bar. With the rum and cokes." 

Bucky smirked. That had been a good night, even if the memory was somewhat blurry. "You know I don’t remember shit from that night. Wasn't the name Russian or something?"

"Or something," Sam glanced away. "But the point is, I showed you!"

"Yeah, you did." Bucky shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic seat. He'd finished the patient chart on his tablet a while ago but so far dispatch hadn't dinged them for another call. It was past ten-o'clock on a cold Wednesday night in February, which explained the slow pace of their shift. But Bucky was suddenly wishing his radio would squawk just so he could get out of this awkward conversation. 

"And? So?" 

"I'm Romanian," Bucky said. "We never share our Names." It was a bit of a lie. Romanians were fucking superstitious when it came to the Name the Universe emblazoned on your forearm sometime after you turned thirteen, but they'd still share. He twisted the bracelet on his wrist, making sure the name embedded in his skin was well-covered. He had his reasons for not sharing the name with Sam and none of them had to do with his background. He bit his lip.

"Romanians don't share their Names?" Sam repeated. "Why have you never told me that bef—Oh hey, Officer, how are you?"

Bucky turned to smile as 'Officer Hottie' came over. She was wearing the bulky fall jacket that all NYPD officers were issued, and her blazing red hair was messy from the toque she'd just removed. She was followed by another female officer whose entire demeanour screamed 'rookie!' from the neatness of her dark brown bun to the newness of her uniform. Their badges and last names were pinned to their chests, but Bucky didn't even have to look to know that neither of them would match the name on his wrist.

"Hello death fighters," she said cheerfully. "How goes the war?"

"Slow." Bucky grinned and stood, sticking out his hand. "I've seen you around before, but we've never met. I'm Bucky." 

She raised one red eyebrow. "No middle and last name? Guess you're not feeling lucky tonight." 

"Not feeling worthy," Bucky said smoothly, and the officer laughed. 

"Natalia Romanova, but everyone calls me Natasha." She winked at Sam. "Want my middle name?"

Sam was staring at her, open-mouthed. "Please tell me it's Alianovna."

Now it was Natasha's turn to stare. "It is Alianovna…Are you Samuel?"

"Samuel Thomas Wilson," he said faintly. "But everyone calls me Sam." He held out his right wrist, silver bracelet removed. There, in a strong feminine hand was the officer's name. 

"Holy shit," Natasha gasped. She pushed up her sleeve and pulled off the black cloth band the NYPD gave their staff. Sam's name was right there.

"You're my soulmate," Sam breathed.

"Looks like," Natasha said. "Thank God you're cute and well-employed." 

"You're my soulmate!" Sam laughed. "Officer Hottie is my soulmate!"

Natasha's smile immediately turned into a frown. "What?"

The rookie stepped forward. "Hi," she said brightly. "I'm Wanda Marya Maximoff." She had a light accent that sounded sexy and smoky and very Eastern European. She looked at Bucky, who shrugged. "Nothing? Aw damn."

Sam and Natasha had started talking, their eyes glued to each other. Bucky sighed and rubbed the cuff on his wrist. 

"Yeah." Wanda held up her own arm, black band covering her skin from the base of her thumb to mid-forearm. "I'm still waiting for my soulmate as well." 

_That makes one of us_ , Bucky thought. 

"So that's where my FTO and recruit have gotten to," a man's voice said. Bucky turned to see another officer standing behind him, wearing the triple chevrons of a sergeant. He was big and blond with bright blue eyes and a warm smile, and at least an inch taller than Bucky's six-foot-one. Even the bulk of his winter jacket couldn't hide his muscular physique. The name 'Rogers' was pinned just below his badge. Bucky's jaw dropped. 

He knew this _Rogers_. He'd known him since childhood. The body might not match his memories, but he'd know those piercing blue eyes and gorgeous face anywhere. He also knew that the rest of Rogers' name would match what was on his wrist. Against all of his efforts to disappear, somehow the Universe had still put Steve into his path. 

He didn't know if he should laugh or cry. 

Bucky's immediate pure joy at seeing Steve whole and healthy and _alive_ was instantly at war with confusion, shame and fear that Rogers would recognize him. He couldn't face him now. Maybe not ever. Not after what he'd done.

Bucky quashed the raging desire to pull Steve into his arms and took a step back instead. He ducked his face, wishing he'd worn his hair down so he'd have something to hide behind. He put it up because he'd wanted to avoid Hill giving him shit for not meeting the health and safety regulations, but If he'd known Rogers was going to be there he'd have kept his hair down, damn the consequences. 

But if he'd known he would've ever bumped into Rogers again, he'd probably just have quit the FDNY and moved to Indiana. 

He took a couple more steps back, wondering how quickly he could leave without it looking hella suspicious. 

"Hello Sergeant," Wanda said with a grin. 

"Hello rookie." Steve grinned fondly back at her. "Officer Romanova." 

"Steve," Natasha said flippantly. "Please meet Bucky and Sam, our paramedic colleagues from the FDNY. And oh, Sam's my soulmate." 

Bucky's jaw snapped shut as Steve looked at him. _So much for my great escape_. He aimed for friendly but not overly-so. The kind of look you'd give a stranger you didn't hate on sight but also didn't really want to get to know. Even though all he wanted to do was fall on his knees in front of Steve, and only one of the reasons was an apology. 

"Your soulmate?" Steve's grin widened to a true smile as he shook Sam's hand. "Congratulations!" 

"I'm sure you're next, boss," Wanda said. 

Steve's grin faltered and he shook his head at Wanda's comment but didn't answer. "Anyway, nice to meet you fellas, but unfortunately we've got calls stacking up so we've got to go." His eyes narrowed as his gaze fell on Bucky. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Nope," Bucky lied easily. "I just got one of those faces." 

"Huh," Steve said, still staring at him. "I could've sworn…did you grow up in Brooklyn?"

Bucky swallowed and scrambled to think of an answer just as their radio finally flared into life. _Saved by the bell_. "We gotta go." He sighed in relief. "Looks like we got a call, too." 

Sam was frantically inputting Natasha's digits into his phone. "I'll text you!" 

"I know where you work," Natasha shot back. She pressed a quick kiss to Sam's face, and then as a group they turned to leave. 

Steve's eyes were still narrowed as he examined Bucky's face one last time before he followed his colleagues. 

"Be safe!" Sam called after them. 

"I'll text you later!" Natasha called back, and then they were gone.

"Holy shit." Sam touched his cheek reverently. "I just met my _soulmate_!"

"You're a lucky man." 

Sam nudged him affectionately with his shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm sure your girl is out there." 

"Sure." Bucky swallowed. He thought of Sergeant Steve Rogers, and how he'd already met his soulmate once, but had lost his chance forever. He wished he could tell Sam. "It's a man's name," he said instead, hoping that it would sound like a reasonable excuse. 

Sam's face split in a wide smile. "I was hoping you'd eventually get up the nerve to tell me!" 

Bucky's face heated in shame. He'd never been worried about Sam's reaction to his name belonging to a man and he hated pretending that was the reason he didn't tell Sam anything about his name at all. "You knew?"

"I guessed." Sam nudged Bucky again. "And I also guessed you figured it was a bigger deal than it is. So what's his name?"

Bucky shook his head. "Romanian, remember?" He hated lying to Sam but he was far too clever to not figure out that the Sergeant they'd just met was Bucky's soulmate. And there was no way that Bucky could let that happen. 

Sam rolled his eyes. "You white people."

* * *

Bucky's careful avoidance of Steven Grant Rogers for the last fifteen years of his life was apparently coming undone in one shift. 

Bucky and Sam went out for a call, (slip and fall due to icy sidewalk) and ended up back in the same emergency room a scant forty-five minutes later. It was quick work to transfer care of the elderly gentleman with the newly broken wrist to the nursing staff, which just left Sam to do the electronic charting.

Bucky wandered off to get them both coffee. Normally Bucky didn't mind the night shifts, but February was fucking cold, which meant that being outside felt like an ordeal. That, plus the relatively slow pace of the calls meant that he was feeling every weary minute of being awake when every other sane person was asleep. A dose of a hot caffeinated beverage was just what the paramedic ordered.

The adrenaline jolt of seeing Steve in line at the café kiosk banished every ounce of Bucky's fatigue better than any cup of coffee could. He stopped, frozen, as he tried to decide what to do. He'd promised Sam coffee and he knew they both really needed it. He also knew the next open coffee place was too far to walk, especially in the dark and the cold. He could go back to Sam empty-handed, but then he'd have to explain why, and he'd have to lie to his partner yet again. He just couldn't do that. Not because he was afraid to stand in line to get them both a coffee. 

_He didn't recognize you before_ , Bucky reminded himself. He'd grown a couple of inches since Steve had last seen him, as well as put on an easy sixty pounds of muscle. That, plus the five-o'clock shadow and the long hair would hopefully be enough to keep Steve from figuring out who he was. Especially if he kept pretending they'd never met. 

_Too easy_ , he grimaced. As long as Steve was promoted to Sergeant because of his movie-star good looks and not due to excellent investigative and observational skills, he should be fine.

Bucky straightened his shoulders anyway and prepared to brazen it out. _Here goes nothing._

He slid into line behind Steve, and indulged himself for a moment as he looked over the changes in the other man since Bucky had last seen him. He eyed Steve's broad back and the way it tapered down to a narrow waist and a perfectly rounded ass. Steve had always been his type, even when he was a scrawny teenager with more courage than smarts. But Bucky certainly didn't mind the new height and strength and _health_ of Steve's new incarnation. Steve had ditched his jacket somewhere and the outline of his bulletproof vest was barely visible under his black shirt. It extended from his shoulders to just under his ribcage and accentuated how lean and fit he was. 

It was really hard for Bucky not to just stare at his ass, like a creeper.

Steve must have felt the weight of his gaze because he turned around. 

"Oh hey, Bucky," he said brightly. "I thought you were out on a call." 

"We were," Bucky said. He hoped that the late hour and his fatigue was making his voice gruffer than usual and less easy for Steve to place. "It was a quick turnaround. And you guys?" He really didn't want Steve to recognize him, but he couldn’t stop himself from engaging in conversation. He'd missed him. Bucky had missed him every day since he'd left at seventeen. They were soulmates after all. It wasn't something you could just forget.

Steve made a face. "One of my men got bitten on his bicep. He's in with the doc right now."

"Shit," Bucky muttered. "That sucks." 

"Yeah." Steve's frown deepened. "Clint was bitten through his shirt though, so there's no real concern for disease. Just injury. The asshole had a hell of a strong bite." 

"Shit," Bucky said again. "You want me to grab your coffees so you can head back and be with him?"

"That's a really nice offer." Steve's expression brightened. "But Tash and the Rookie are with him now. He and Tash have been best friends since the Academy, and I know she'll look after him. I think he'll need the coffee more than my company." 

Bucky nodded at Steve's logic, and they fell into a comfortable conversation. It was easy for Bucky to find things to ask Steve about. He was incredibly curious about the fifteen years they'd been apart. It felt really good to hear about the medical care which cured the majority of Steve's childhood health issues. In turn Bucky told Steve about his time as a medic in the military, and then about writing the exam to qualify for the FDNY. Talking to Steve was exactly like it'd always been, and it was almost physically painful for Bucky to realize that he'd have to walk away from it all over again. 

They finally reached the end of the line and Steve ordered four coffees (he still had it with one milk, three sugars, just like when they were kids), and then turned to Bucky. 

"What are you and Sam having?"

"You don't have to do that," Bucky protested immediately. He hated the idea of Steve doing anything nice for him, especially after what he'd done.

Steve waved off his concerns. "You can buy next time." 

Bucky couldn't help the small glow of happiness that bloomed in his chest at Steve's words. _He wants a next time!_ He immediately quashed it. There couldn't be a next time. Not now, and not ever.

But he wasn't going to refuse Steve's generosity. 

"One with cream, one black, like my heart." Bucky grinned at the barista's laugh, but then his grin faltered at Steve's quizzical look.

They moved off to the side to get their coffee order. "It's funny you order your coffee like that," Steve said conversationally. "The only other person I ever knew who made that joke was my friend Jamie. It's funny that you use it." 

"Jamie?" Bucky croaked. Of course Steve would recognize that joke. Bucky had used it all the time when they were kids. At this rate he might as well just cut the pretense of not knowing him, show Steve his Name and be done with it. He was an idiot. 

"My best friend when I was growing up," Steve said in response to Bucky's question. He accepted the tray of coffee with a 'thank you' and scooped them up, leaving Bucky to grab the coffees for him and Sam. They fell into step together. "We met, I don't know, when we were three or four?" 

_Four_ , Bucky's brain supplied helpfully. He'd never forget meeting tiny Steve on his first day of preschool, and just knowing they'd be best friends. He pressed his lips together. 

"Jamie was a great kid, and an even better friend," Steve continued. "You'd never know it from looking at me now, but I was really small when I was young. Weak and sickly and mouthy as hell."

 _No. You were brave!_ Bucky wanted to shout at Steve. He just managed to stop himself from interjecting, and grinned instead. "I'm sure you weren't that bad." 

"I was worse." Steve chuckled. "I was always getting into fights with kids twice my size, and Jamie always had my back. I could always count on him to be there." The smile slipped off his face. 

Bucky grit his teeth to force himself not to beg Steve's forgiveness for ever making him that sad. "What happened?" he said instead, because he suddenly seemed to be into self-torture. 

"I got my Name," Steve said, gesturing at the dark cloth covering his right wrist with his chin. "I was in hospital at the time—I was always in hospital for one damn thing after another—and Jamie came to visit me and I showed him. It was his name, the way I knew it would be. I'd been in love with him for over a decade at that point, and I'd thought he felt the same, but…" He shrugged. 

"I’m sure he cared about you, too," Bucky said with a throat gone suddenly dry. He remembered that moment, how incredibly excited he'd been to see his name on Steve's wrist, and then absolutely terrified. 

Steve shrugged again. "I'm sure he did, in his own way, but it obviously wasn't the same." 

"Yeah?" Bucky asked with a wince. He knew what was coming, but he couldn't stop himself from asking if his life depended on it.

"Yeah. He left and joined the army the next day," Steve said. "By the time I was out of hospital he was gone."

"What a bastard," Bucky said vehemently. It was easy to hate on his younger self for that choice. He'd been doing it for fifteen years. 

Steve shook his head. "Jamie was a great guy," he repeated. "And while I knew he cared for me, he wasn't in love with me. And his family was Romanian and really Roman Catholic. We'd never talked about it, but I'm sure they would've disapproved of him having a man as a soulmate. It made sense that he left."

Hearing Steve say those words felt like Bucky had been stabbed through the chest. He knew leaving would've hurt Steve, but for some reason it had never occurred to him that Steve would've assumed it was because Bucky didn't care. He'd cared all right, he'd always cared. The problem was he'd cared too much. 

There was no way he could explain that to Steve, but he had to say something. "He was a coward." That at least was true.

Steve looked at him. "Pretty harsh words for someone you've never met." 

"I don't need to meet him," Bucky said. "I understand his type." 

That made Steve laugh, but he was still shaking his head in disagreement. "Jamie was never a coward. He's actually the reason why I became a cop." 

Bucky blinked. It was the last thing he expected to hear. "What?"

"Jamie always did what was right," Steve said, seemingly ignoring the look of utter surprise splattered all over Bucky's face. "Not necessarily what was legal mind you, or even what was fair, but he always did the right thing. He'd stand up for the school bully if everyone was ganging up on him, or defend a traffic cop for giving out a ticket. He'd even jump kids from behind when I was getting the snot beat out of me, which wasn't fair to them, but certainly was the right thing to do. I knew he stole from the big box grocery store to bring food to the old lady who lived across the hall. He said it was their fault that her rent had gotten so high, so it was only right that they helped her out." 

"Mrs. Knight," Bucky murmured, remembering the frail woman who was always so thankful for the groceries he brought her, and always too smart to ask where he got them. 

Steve's eyes snapped to his. "How'd you know her name?"

Bucky's heart stuttered in his chest. "You said it," he said desperately.

"Huh," Steve said. Every line of his face said he didn’t buy Bucky's excuse but he was going to let it go. There was an awkward pause while Steve studied him. 

"You were telling me about Jamie and becoming a cop?" Bucky managed to say in an almost normal voice. 

"The stuff Jamie did?" Steve continued. "It made me want to be like that. I wanted to be the kind of person who would do the right thing, even though it might be hard, or scary. I wanted to be like that. That just, and that brave."

 _But you were the one who taught me that_ , Bucky thought immediately. He hadn't been half the man Steve was when they were young. And the only reason he'd done anything Steve had mentioned was to make Steve smile and be proud of him. Steve had always been the one who wanted to help others, only his frail body wouldn't let him do what Bucky could do with ease. _I became a paramedic because of you_. It was on the tip of Bucky's tongue to tell Steve that: how after he'd left Steve that night in the hospital he'd spent the rest of his life trying to be the kind of man who used to deserve Steve's friendship. He was a better man because of Steve, and it was impossible to believe that he'd been that kind of motivator for Steve's life, too.

"Jamie didn't deserve to be your friend," Bucky said roughly. 

Steve laughed mirthlessly. "Even knowing how it ended? I'd be his friend all over again." 

"Then you're stupider than you look," Bucky said. 

Steve burst out into a real laugh. "That's exactly something Jamie would've said!" He paused in their walking down the nearly-deserted hospital hallway, turning to face Bucky head-on. "I can't get over how much you remind me of him. Your colouring, your voice, the way you talk, what you say—" he broke off with a shake of his head and then peered at Bucky through his eyelashes. "But if you were him, there'd be no reason you wouldn't tell me, right?"

"Of course. I mean, if I were this Jamie guy, who abandoned you when you were a kid in the hospital, why wouldn't I tell ya? Just because you'd be strong enough to knock me into the middle of next week…"

Steve chuckled, but the look he gave Bucky was totally serious. "I'd never do that," he said as if Bucky hadn't been joking. "All I'd want to do is find out why he left. And then I'd tell him I forgive him, and that I'd hope we could rebuild what we had and be friends." 

Bucky's throat tightened. He'd love nothing more than that himself, except he'd also like to tell Steve they were actually soulmates, and throw himself into his arms. 

But there was no way Steve could mean what he said. No one was that good. And even if Steve actually was that kind of decent, there was no way Bucky deserved forgiveness. Not after what he'd done. 

"I kinda wish I was him." Bucky forced himself to smile. "Because you'd be a hellava catch." 

"Well," Steve said thoughtfully as they rounded the final corner before they arrived back at the ED, "I've been ditched by my soulmate, and I'm guessing that you might not have found yours yet. And you just said you think I'm a catch, and I know that I'd really like to get to know you better. So, what do you say? Want to meet up after the shift for breakfast and see where fate takes us?" He was so handsome when he smiled that it almost hurt.

"Yes," Bucky said before his brain-to-mouth filter was able to come online. "I'd like that." 

"Great!" Steve enthused. "Let me drop off these coffees and make sure Clint's okay and then I'll grab your contact information. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," Bucky repeated, and then watched as Steve winked at him before shouldering his way into the ED. Bucky turned towards the small report room in a daze. What the fuck had he just done?

Sam sat up as soon as he saw him. "Coffee!" he exclaimed happily. Then he frowned. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Sergeant Rogers just asked me out on a date," Bucky said softly. 

"That's great!" Sam exclaimed, then frowned again at Bucky's non-response. "Isn't that great?"

"No," Bucky said, the reality of his stupidity crashing down on him. "It's really not. I can't do this Sam, I can't!"

"Whoa," Sam had his hands on Bucky's shoulders. "It's okay, Bucky, you don't have to date this guy."

 _But he's my soulmate!_ Bucky wanted to cry. _He forgave me for leaving him, and he loves me and he's good and kind and he's my soulmate!_ "He bought us coffee," he said instead. 

"It doesn't matter how nice he is," Sam said. "You don't have to date him if you don't want. You don't owe him anything." 

"Yeah, okay." Bucky shook his head. His whirling thoughts began to calm with Sam's words. "I don’t have to. I don't owe him anything." 

"No, you don't," Sam agreed. "But you gotta tell me. Why wouldn't you want to go on a date with that fine specimen of a man?" 

Bucky opened his mouth, and then closed it again. There was nothing he could say to Sam to answer that question without either sounding like an idiot or telling him the truth. He couldn't bear to see Sam's face when he realized how cruel Bucky had been to his soulmate. Sam was his best friend, he'd rather die than lose his respect. "It's because of my Name," Bucky said finally. It was as close to the truth as he could get. 

"I get that," Sam said. "It's hard to want to date someone else when you know your soulmate is out there." 

Bucky's mouth thinned. "You have no idea."

* * *

Steve never came by after checking on Clint. 

It was probably because he'd received another call, Bucky told himself as he and Sam pulled out of the ambulance parking and headed back out into the night. Steve was way too nice of a guy to not tell Bucky if he'd changed his mind about meeting up later. 

Unless he'd actually figured out that Bucky was really Jamie from his childhood and this was a huge game of 'tit-for-tat.' Which would be a terrible thing to do but really no less than Bucky deserved. 

And Bucky's disappointment was in no way completely ridiculous, since he'd decided that it was totally impossible for him to actually date Steve while continuing to pretend he wasn't really Jamie and that they weren't really soulmates. 

So it was all good. Even though Bucky kind of felt like his heart was broken. Which was stupid. 

"Natasha texted me!" Sam cried out happily from the passenger seat. 

"Awesome," Bucky said, genuinely pleased for his friend. It was extremely rare for soulmate pairs to not work out, but it did happen. It was great to see that Sam and Natasha were starting out so well. 

Even though Natasha was apparently good friends with Steve, who was also her boss, and Bucky's soulmate, which he could never tell anyone. 

Bucky grimaced. He really didn't want to have to move to Indiana. 

"She wants to know what time we get off shift," Sam continued. He looked over at Bucky. "She says she's asking for a friend."

Bucky's heart soared as he realized that Steve was the 'friend' in that sentence, only to immediately have it crash to his boots a second later. Being with Steve was impossible. 

Sam was still looking at him. "What do you want me to say?"

"Ask her how Clint's doing," Bucky said. It was a bit of a dodge, but he did want to know how the other officer was, even though they'd never met. 

"She says that Clint's fine and he's back on the road. Didn’t even need any stitches," Sam reported. "Who's Clint?"

Bucky told him about the officer who'd been bitten earlier that night and Sam conveyed his well-wishes to Natasha's friend.

"She says we can all meet up over breakfast this morning," Sam read off his phone. "Once they know what time we're finishing up. You don't need to do this," he said softly, repeating what he'd said before. "I can meet up with Natasha and the rest of them. You can just go home." 

Bucky felt a huge swell of affection for his partner and how he always had his back. It was the best kind of friendship, and one of the greatest Bucky had ever had. Since Steve. 

_Jamie always had my back_. Steve had said. It had been true, but it'd been completely mutual. Bucky could count on Sam, but he'd also been able to count on Steve for anything and everything. From age four to seventeen, Steve had been Bucky's rock to lean on, his shoulder to cry on and everything in between. Even though they'd only had one conversation, it seemed like the time they'd been apart had only made Steve more of the great guy he'd been, not less. He'd weathered Bucky's betrayal and become better for it.

 _All I'd want to do is find out why he left. And then I'd tell him I forgive him_ , Steve had also said. Bucky had dismissed that statement, assuming that there was no way Steve could mean it. No one could have been treated the way Bucky treated him and be able to forgive it. Not even someone as decent as Steve.

 _Unless you're wrong?_ Bucky bit his lip. His heart clenched in his chest at the thought. Was it even possible that Steve could've meant what he said? Steve might mean it…up until the point where Bucky told him the truth, and then he'd probably realize how horrible a person Bucky was, how horrible he'd always been, and this time it'd be Steve who walked away forever.

Bucky shuddered. He'd never been strong enough to deal with the idea of losing Steve. 

But once upon a time Bucky had been brave. Brave enough to inspire Steve to devote his life to keeping others safe. Maybe Bucky could even be that brave now. Maybe he could actually be the person Steve thought he was.

"Tell 'em we get off at seven. We can meet them at that diner place you like around seven-thirty," Bucky said. He felt like he was going to burst with happiness. He felt like he was going to be sick. 

"Seven-thirty it is." Bucky could hear the glee in Sam's voice. "We should get off on time. It's a slow night." 

"Damn it, Sam!" Bucky swore. "You just jinxed us." 

"I was just stating the facts!" Sam protested. "It _has_ been a slow night, and—"

Their radio blared. Bucky glared at Sam. 

"It'll be quick," Sam said. 

"Right," Bucky muttered. He keyed on the microphone.

* * *

They were almost at the call for back pain when their radio blared again. 

Sam grabbed it. "Thank God," he muttered before he keyed it on and gave their ambulance number. The back pain call would've been easy, but it would've killed the rest of their night, since they would've ended up on off-load delay waiting for hospital staff to get to their non-emerg patient. Bucky didn't like for anyone to suffer, but back pain almost never needed an ambulance at nearly two in the morning. 

It was now way after midnight, and he was tired, so it was easy to let Sam's conversation with dispatch fade to the background. Sam would let him know where they were heading soon enough, and it had to be close by or Communications would've pegged a different unit. 

He was contemplating how he was going to come clean to Steve over breakfast when Sam's tone sharpened. He glanced over at his partner. Sam's expression had hardened and when he looked up at Bucky his eyes were dark with concern. 

It told Bucky everything he needed to know. He turned on the lights and sirens and pressed down on the gas. 

"We're on our way," Sam said to dispatch and keyed off the mic. He rattled off an address and Bucky winced. It was a nasty part of Vinegar Hill and a place that he tried to avoid as much as possible. 

"What're we going for?" Bucky asked as he made a sharp left turn. 

"Shots fired," Sam said tersely. "A cop's been hit." 

"Fuck." Bucky sped up.

* * *

The scene was lit up with red and blue lights and crawling with police officers by the time Bucky and Sam pulled up. They were in front of some kind of non-descript building that could've housed anything from office furniture to drug dealers. Clearly it also had held someone with a gun. 

"This way!" an officer said breathlessly as Bucky got out of the cab.

Bucky nodded to him and continued his quick pace to the back of the truck. "We need our stuff."

"What can I carry?" The officer said. He looked distraught and like he was barely holding himself together. There was a streak of blood on his forehead. 

"You okay, Officer Morita?" Bucky said, reading off the man's name tag. He grabbed the front of the stretcher and he and Sam started following the officer at a fast clip. "I see you've got some blood on you." 

"What?" The officer wiped at his forehead and then stared at his fingertips. "This isn't mine." 

"Were you hurt?" Bucky asked, trying to break through Morita's obvious distress. "There's another ambulance on the way—"

"I'm fine," Morita said quickly. "Let's just go." 

Bucky nodded and they followed the officer in taut silence. Bucky could feel Morita's tension rolling off of him in waves and it was making him feel equally as anxious. Bad injuries were always hard, but it was worse when it involved another emergency service worker. They may have been different services, but the FDNY and the NYPD were family. There was nothing as terrible as having a brother or sister get hurt on the job. 

They rounded the corner of the building. Bucky and Sam parked the stretcher and grabbed their equipment bags and jogged over to where the injured officers were. Bucky keyed his radio as they went. 

"ETA for the second ambulance, two minutes," Bucky said to Sam, who nodded his comprehension. They'd do what they could with two wounded officers until more paramedics arrived. 

Sam stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Bucky to rear back so he wouldn't run into him. 

"Natasha," Sam breathed. 

She was sitting on the ground, her left arm elevated above her head as another officer gripped it tightly. Every few moments a fat drop of blood would escape his grip and splash wetly onto the pavement. She looked pale and in pain, but she was visibly conscious and alert. 

"I'm okay," she called to Sam, "Clint's with me. Help Steve!"

It was Bucky's turn for his blood to turn to ice in his veins. 

Steve was on his back, face contorted in pain. Wanda, the rookie they'd met earlier, was kneeling on him, her knee shoved deeply into the juncture of his groin where his leg met his torso. The skin of her hands was wet and purple in the low light where she pressed down on the wound in his thigh. Blood seeped thick and dark between her fingers. There was a pool of blood forming beneath them, shining in the streetlights. 

"Help me," she pleaded, tears in her eyes. "I can't stop the bleeding!"

"I'm okay," Steve panted. "I'm okay. Go help Romanova." 

"She's fine," Sam said tersely. "The other ambulance is with her now." It was true. Bucky could see their flashing lights out of the corner of his eye as he focused on Steve. 

Time slowed to a crawl. Bucky knelt and assessed Steve's injury like every second was an hour. Wanda had done a good job with putting direct pressure on his artery with her knee, and she'd even applied a tourniquet above the wound, but she hadn't tightened it tight enough, probably out of fear that he'd lose his leg if she did. _Better his leg than his life_ , Bucky thought, and cranked the tourniquet until the blood gushing out of Steve's leg slowed to a trickle. Steve cried out, and Bucky winced, but his hands remained steady.

"Got it," Sam said, helping Bucky to latch it into place. Sam wrote the time down on the tourniquet's tag. 

Wanda moved back, her face as pale as the light from the streetlamps around them. At some point she had removed Steve's utility belt and she now held it in her blood-covered hands. "Is he going to die?"

"Not if we can help it," Bucky muttered. He cut off the leg of Steve's pants to better visualize the wound. He hated to do it because it was fucking cold out, but he had to see what he was dealing with. It was a deep hole, about the size of Bucky's thumb. There was no exit wound which meant that the bullet was still lodged somewhere in his leg. The limb was swelling as it filled up with the blood that wasn't coming directly out the small hole. Dimly Bucky was aware of Sam asking Steve questions and checking out Steve's upper body for other injuries but he shoved it to the back of his mind. 

Even with the tourniquet the wound was still bleeding, and it was disturbingly clear that Steve had lost a lot of blood before they'd arrived. They had to get him to a hospital, and fast. 

"We need to move," Bucky turned to Sam who was finishing up his head-to-toe. They'd have to strip Steve to ensure they hadn't missed anything, but it was too cold and he'd lost too much blood for them to do it on the pavement. Sam nodded his agreement and got up to get the stretcher. 

"Is Tash okay?" Steve gasped out. "My Rookie? Are they okay?"

"They're fine," Bucky said. 

"We need to help them!" Steve's eyes were dark and unfocused, foggy with the combination of shock, blood loss and pain. He tried to sit up. 

"Whoa!" Bucky stopped him with his hand on his chest. "No, Stevie, don't!" 

"Jamie?" Steve said. He grabbed Bucky's hand. Steve's skin felt cold even through Bucky's medical glove. Steve's other hand wrapped itself around the bracelet on Bucky's wrist. He could feel Steve's touch on his Name, warm like sunlight even through the metal. He gasped. Steve was his soulmate, and right that second Bucky couldn't understand why he'd ever wanted to deny it. 

"I'm here, Stevie," Bucky said. 

"I really missed you." Steve's eyes filled with tears. "Why'd you leave?"

"Because I was scared," Bucky said honestly. "Because you were sick and I was scared you were going to die." 

"I'm not going to die," Steve murmured. His eyes slipped shut as he lost consciousness.

* * *

Bucky had never been driven to a hospital so fast in his life. 

They'd loaded Steve's unconscious body into the patient compartment just as the other ambulance left the scene, presumably with Sam's soulmate and her friend Clint on board. They'd only been on-scene for five minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. 

NYPD cleared the route for Bucky and Sam, and Officer Morita ended up driving their ambulance, which meant that they didn’t have to deal with weaving around stupid New Yorkers thinking they were more important than an ambulance flying lights-and-sirens through the streets. It actually would have been a lot of fun to drive and Bucky might've been jealous of Morita if it hadn't been Bucky's _soulmate_ dying from blood loss in the back.

Sam and Bucky worked on Steve like a well-oiled machine: monitoring his vitals, changing I.V. bags and loosening and tightening the tourniquet to prevent either losing Steve's leg or losing his life, whichever was more pressing at the moment. It was enough work that it almost took Bucky's mind off how white Steve had looked when he'd passed out, or how shallow his breathing was, or how fast his heart was beating, trying to circulate what little blood he had left. 

Unloading Steve at the ED was fluid and fast. The entire trauma team was there, ready and waiting to help plug the still-oozing hole in his leg. He was sedated, out of pain and had blood hanging and was off to the OR within ten minutes of his arrival. 

"What're his details?" someone shouted at Bucky while they transferred Steve's limp body onto a hospital stretcher. 

"Steven Grant Rogers," Bucky replied immediately, and then rattled off his date of birth, his allergies; his history of asthma, heart murmurs and his blood type. 

"Excellent!" the same someone shouted as the group of doctors and nurses raced Steve's stretcher down the hallway and into the waiting elevator. 

Bucky stayed standing in the hallway, Steve's blood cooling on his medical gloves, until the elevator doors shut. He barely had a chance to feel dizzy before he was suddenly sitting on the floor.

Sam helped him get to a chair and put his head between his knees until the black spots faded and the feeling that he was going to puke shifted into something tolerable. 

"You okay?" Sam asked gently as he helped Bucky peel off his gloves. 

"That's Steve's blood," Bucky said inanely. 

"I'll take that as a no," Sam said. He pulled up a chair beside him. "I'm gonna get you some water. Can you just sit here and breathe while I’m gone?"

Bucky nodded, head in his hands. He'd never lost it after a call like that before. Not when he was in the army, scooping up wounded soldiers off the desert sand, and not before now. Then again, he'd never had to try to save the life of his soulmate. 

A soulmate he'd left behind fifteen years ago because he'd been afraid of exactly this. Bucky laughed softly, and then laughed harder until he was crying.

Steve's rookie slid into the seat beside him. 

"Sam's with Natasha," she explained before he could ask. She handed him a glass of water. 

Bucky nodded his thanks and drank deeply. It was cool with only a vague plastic aftertaste and he actually felt a little better after he'd swallowed it down. 

"You okay?" she asked.

"I should be asking you that question," Bucky said. He forced himself to sit up and behave like a fucking medical professional. "You did a great job, by the way. Excellent work kneeling on his groin like that." 

"Thanks." She frowned unhappily, her accent thickening with her distress. "I put the tourniquet on wrong."

"You put it on," Bucky said. "It meant that Sam and I only had to tighten it instead of spending time getting it on his leg. That helped a lot." 

"I should've tightened it better. It was too loose. If you hadn't come when you did, he would've lost too much blood and died." 

_He might die anyway_. Bucky didn't say the thought out-loud. "But we did come. And your first aid helped. It helped a lot. You should be proud of that." 

"He only got shot because of me." Her whole face crumpled as she said it. "I didn't see the perp's gun until he'd already sighted on us. Steve pushed me out of the way."

"And that's why rookies are paired up with experienced officers. So you can learn." Bucky was proud of how even his voice sounded, how in control when it felt like he was going to crack apart any minute. 

"It's my fault." 

"No!" Bucky said vehemently. "It's not your fault. It's the fault of the guy with the gun. If he hadn't shot at you he would've shot at whatever officer did show up. You can't think it's your fault." 

"But Steve—"

"Steve did not nearly die for you to think it's your fault!" Bucky shouted. His outburst attracted the attention of several people in the ED. With difficulty he lowered his voice. "Steve did what he did because that's who he is. He pushed you out of the way because he didn't want you to get hurt. He damn well must have thought you were worth it."

The rookie nodded miserably. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

"Yes," Bucky said. More of a prayer than a real answer. He had no idea if Steve was going to be okay. His heartbeat had been so thready when they'd attached the monitors. His skin so pale… he put his head in his hands.

"I didn't know you knew the Sergeant," She said softly. "When I met you before I thought that you didn't know each other, but maybe I was wrong?" 

"You were wrong." Bucky didn't lift his hands. "But not wrong, either. Steve and I knew each other years ago. I remembered him, but he didn't really remember me." 

"And you didn't tell him?"

Bucky shrugged. "It's complicated." 

"Ah," she said softly. They sunk into a companionable silence, the only noise the quiet background murmur of the ED as the night slowly faded into dawn. 

Sam came back, followed by the officer that Bucky had seen holding onto Natasha's arm. The officer looked exhausted and emotionally wrung out. There was dried blood in his hair like he'd run his hands through it before he washed. 

"Natasha's going to be okay," Sam said before Bucky had a chance to ask. "The bullet just grazed her bicep. A few stitches and a couple days rest, and she'll be fine." 

"It bled like a bitch," the officer said. "I’m Clint, by the way. Natasha's friend." 

Bucky nodded. "You got bitten earlier tonight." 

"I did? Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot." He flexed his arm as if testing it for pain, then grinned. It didn’t reach his eyes.

"Rough night." Sam looked at Clint sympathetically, before turning the same sympathetic gaze on Bucky. "For all of us." 

Bucky swallowed and looked down. He knew Sam had heard him disclose a shit ton of information about Steve that he should never have known. Sam wasn't stupid. He had to have figured out that Bucky and Steve had some kind of backstory. He'd also have to know that Bucky lied when he'd told Steve that they'd never met. Sam must be confused and curious, but Bucky was sure that Sam wasn't going to ask until Bucky had his equilibrium back. Sam was good like that. 

Another friend that Bucky probably didn't really deserve.

"I can't believe it's only four-fifteen," the rookie said. "It feels like this shift has gone on for days." 

The others nodded in agreement. "I'm glad you and Steve shot that guy," Clint said quietly.

"Me, too." Her expression hardened. "I didn't become a police officer to hurt anyone, but he was trying to kill us. I'm glad that he can't do that anymore." 

"You did a great job," Clint agreed. "Captain Fury asked me to take you back to the station for your statement before I take you home. I think you're going to get a few shifts off, too. And probably a chat with our psychologist." 

"All of that sounds fine," the rookie sighed. "But I want to come back here after I meet with Fury. I would like to make sure Steve is okay." She stood. "Thank you for helping Steve," she said to Bucky and Sam, her voice almost painful in its sincerity. "I will never forget what you've done, and I will forever be in your debt." 

Sam cleared his throat. "We were just doing our job." 

"I know," she said. 

"I hope your day gets easier," Clint said, and gently he escorted her out. 

Sam scrubbed his face. "God." 

"Yeah," Bucky sighed. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

"I should say the same to you." 

Bucky glanced towards the ceiling, imagining the OR suites so many floors above. "I can't leave yet." 

"I figured." Sam sat down beside Bucky. "I don't want to leave Natasha, either." 

"At least the radio's quiet." 

Sam licked his lips. "I may have told Captain Hill to clear us for the rest of the shift."

Bucky nearly sagged in relief. He was dreading getting another call and having to go back out there. Especially if he had to deal with something stupid. Not when his soulmate was fighting for his life. "Thanks for that." 

"My pleasure," Sam said, then grimaced. "Okay, not really." 

Bucky huffed out a laugh. "Thanks," he said again.

"I'm here for you." Sam stood. "Now come on, I think it's time for a coffee before we head up to the OR waiting room. Maybe they'll have some news about Steve." 

"Yeah," Bucky said. He stood.

"And then, maybe you can tell me why you know Sergeant Rogers' date of birth and his blood type," Sam said nonchalantly. "Considering you've never met before." 

Bucky glanced at him. "It's a long story." 

Sam put his hand on his shoulder. "We got time."

* * *

They sat together in the OR waiting room. Sam's coffee was sitting on the table in front of him, steam rising gently from the cup, as wispy and insubstantial as Bucky's thoughts. 

He held his own cup of coffee in both hands, feeling the warmth seeping through the paper sleeve, doing nothing for the ice cold fear that had embedded itself in his heart. 

Sam reached over and picked up his cup, taking a small sip. 

"So." He looked at Bucky.

"I don't know how to start."

"Begin at the beginning."

Bucky smirked mirthlessly. "Thanks, Lewis Carroll."

Sam grinned. "You know that reference." 

"My little sister, Rebecca, loved Alice in Wonderland. I heard all the quotes growing up." Bucky frowned as he thought of Becca, her love for everything Alice, and the beautiful painting that Steve had made for her for her eleventh birthday. He'd painted Rebecca as Alice, deep in conversation with the Cheshire Cat. She'd loved that present so much she'd taken it with her when she'd moved to Albany with her soulmate, Ian Proctor. Last Bucky had seen it, it'd had a place of honour in her living room, hung over the mantle. 

He'd never told Becca Steve was his soulmate, either. He sighed.

"You don't actually have to tell me anything," Sam said, clearly misinterpreting his sigh. "Not unless you want to." 

Bucky didn't want to. But he was tired and heartsick and feeling utterly ashamed. He was terrified that Steve was actually going to die before he had a chance to fix any part of the horrible thing he'd done. He didn’t want to say any of it out loud, but he was weary of carrying the weight of it all, and if Sam was going to judge him, it was probably no less that he deserved.

"I met Steve when he was three and I was four," Bucky said. "We were friends—best friends, actually. So close that even though we looked totally different, some people thought we were brothers." 

"And were you?" Sam raised his eyebrows. "Brothers?"

"No." Bucky shook his head. "We were much closer than that."

Sam nodded his understanding. He gestured at Bucky's silver-covered wrist. "He's your soulmate?"

There was no point in denying it. Not anymore. "Yeah." 

"But I'm guessing he doesn't know that?"

Bucky sighed. "No." 

"Uh huh." Sam tilted his head. "Is it because it's unrequited?" 

That sometimes happened. One person got another's name, but the other person never got theirs. It was rare as it was tragic and the idea of being 'unrequited' kept more than one newly-Named teenager up at night. But it certainly wasn't what had happened to Bucky. 

"No. He has my Name, too." 

"So, you know he has your Name, but he doesn't know you have his?" 

Bucky winced. It sounded awful when Sam said it like that. "Pretty much." 

"And I'm guessing that, considering he didn’t recognize you before, that you guys haven't seen each other in a while?" 

Bucky pressed his lips together. "Yeah." 

Sam sat back. "I'm sure you've got a good reason for that." 

"I did. Once." Bucky ran his hands through his hair. "Now? Not so much." 

"What happened?"

"He nearly died," Bucky said, then laughed. "Hell, he was always nearly dying. If he wasn't getting the shit beat outta him by the neighbourhood kids, he was choking from some fucking asthma attack, or needing antibiotics for some horrible infection, or having palpitations or passing out from hypotension…" Bucky put his face in his hands. 

"That sounds bad." 

"It was fucking terrifying!" Bucky spat. "From the time I was old enough to understand how sick—how fucking fragile—Steve was, I was terrified he was going to die! The first thing I would do every goddamn morning was knock on his door, or call his apartment, or throw fucking _rocks_ at his window to make sure he'd survived the night. When we both finally got cell phones I used to make him text me as soon as he got up in the morning and before he went to bed, so I'd know that he'd made it through one more day. I fucking _hated_ it." He'd stood up somewhere during his diatribe and was now pacing the small waiting room, running his hands through his hair. The elastic he'd used to put it up with at the beginning of shift was gone and his hair was loose to his shoulders. 

"I can't believe you put up with that." 

Bucky whirled on Sam. "Put up with it?" he repeated, incredulous. "I didn't put up with jack shit! I loved him!" 

Sam gave a small smile. "I figured. There had to be a reason that you'd put yourself through all that anguish. If it wasn’t for love, I don't know what it would've been."

"Yeah, well. Didn't do Steve much good in the end, all this deep love I felt for him." 

"Oh?"

"He was in hospital the day he got Named." Bucky smirked without humour. "He'd gotten a head cold and—of course—it'd gone straight to his lungs. He got pneumonia so bad that he had to go to hospital for a week and get supplemental oxygen. They nearly intubated him, it was so bad. They thought he'd gone septic." 

Sam winced. "Jesus." 

"Yeah." Bucky nodded. He hadn't known any of the medical terms then, but he sure as hell understood how sick Steve had been. "And I wasn't allowed to be there, you know? I wasn't really his brother. I wasn’t family, so even though he could've died at any second, I wasn't allowed in to see him. I couldn't be with him." He sat back down, the weight of the memory suddenly too heavy to bear. "He nearly died and I wasn’t allowed to be there." 

"That sucks," Sam agreed.

"Fucking right it does." 

"So, what happened?"

Bucky shrugged. "He got better. And when he was finally well enough to stay awake for a whole thirty minutes, I was allowed back in to go visit."

"That must've felt good, after all your worry." 

"It did. But then he showed me his wrist, and—" Bucky stopped talking, overwhelmed by the memory of that moment. Steve had been so incredibly joyous that Bucky was his soulmate, and Bucky had been absolutely elated, too. He'd been so grateful to know that the man he loved, had _always_ loved, was actually meant for him. But mere seconds later, that elation crashed down around him. He'd spent nearly the whole week before panicking because he hadn't known if Steve was going to survive. He'd barely eaten or slept, wondering if the love of his life was going to live to morning.

If he and Steve were soulmates, Bucky realized, he'd spend the rest of his life terrified that Steve was going to die. 

As soon as Steve had gone back to sleep, Bucky had left, thoughts churning. 

"His Name appeared on my arm that night. Steven Grant Rogers proudly circling my wrist, like I'd always known it would." Bucky's laugh was mirthless. 

Bucky remembered sitting on his bed, looking at the Name written in Steve's messy hand. He'd felt an overwhelming combination of complete happiness and total fear, so gut wrenching that he'd thrown up, then immediately burst into tears. He remembered kneeling by the toilet, crying so hard he could barely catch his breath. The words _your soulmate will die_ ran through his head like a horror movie soundtrack, over and over and over. 

He'd gone to the recruiting centre the following morning. He'd never spoken to Steve again. 

Bucky wiped his eyes with his sleeve, wondering when he'd started crying. "Fuck."

"Man, that's gotta have been hard, knowing your soulmate could die at any second," Sam said. 

"Y'think?" 

"Doesn't matter what I think," Sam said. "What did you think?"

"Exactly what you think I did," Bucky said. "That he was going to die and I was too much of a coward to deal." 

"I wasn't exactly thinking that—"

"Like hell you weren't!" Bucky stood and started pacing again. "Steve showed me my Name on his wrist, and I left and never looked back. I was his soulmate and I left and _I never saw him again_. If that doesn't make me a fucking coward than I ain't got a clue what would." 

"Or you might've been a young kid in love with someone you thought was going to die and wanted to try to save yourself some grief," Sam said. His eyes were as kind as always. 

"I was seventeen," Bucky said. "That ain't a kid." 

"It isn't an adult," Sam said reasonably. "And you'd just spent a week wondering if your best friend was going to make it through the next day or not. That sounds pretty traumatic for someone, no matter how old they are." 

"Maybe it was traumatic," Bucky said, "but I never saw him again. My best friend. My soulmate and I never saw him again!' He shook his head. "I don't care how traumatic it was. I was a coward."

"You were a scared kid who was trying to protect himself," Sam said. "Sounds like you did the best you could." 

"I. Never. Saw. Him. Again," Bucky repeated for the third time, emphasizing every word so Sam might begin to understand. "Maybe I had a good excuse at seventeen, but I sure as fuck didn't at twenty, or twenty-five, or in March when I turned thirty-two! How do you explain _fifteen years_ of no contact if it's not that I'm just a fucking coward?"

"No one ever wants to get hurt," Sam said. 

"Yeah, well, Steve didn’t get much of a choice now, did he?"

"No," Sam agreed. "But you can make it up to him now." 

"He recognized me," Bucky said miserably. "While he was bleeding out from the bullet wound. He knew who I was." 

"You can make it up to him," Sam said again. "Once you tell him why you left, I'm sure he'll understand." 

_All I'd want to do is find out why he left. And then I'd tell him I forgive him, and that I'd hope we could rebuild what we had and be friends_. It was like Sam had heard Steve's words when he'd said them earlier that morning. They'd given Bucky so much hope, but then Steve had gotten shot and nearly died. Might still be dying on the operating room table. It was like no matter how far he ran he'd never get far enough to protect himself from losing Steve. He'd never not be sitting in a fucking hospital, waiting to hear if his soulmate would survive. 

"It's funny, ain't it?" Bucky said quietly, not lifting his eyes from the dull vinyl flooring. "I left Steve fifteen years ago so that I wouldn't have to face him dying. And yet here I am. Sitting in another hospital room, praying to God that he'll make it through another day." 

"He'll live," Sam said. "You've got to believe that."

Bucky wiped at his eyes and didn't reply.

* * *

Bucky woke with a start, face damp with tears. His left shoulder was stiff and sore from where he'd been lying on it on the hard, shitty couch in the waiting room. He sat up and scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to clear his head of the images from his nightmare. Steve bleeding, dying—

 _Steve!_

Bucky's eyes widened and he tore his cuff off. It landed with a clatter and rolled under the couch. 

His Name, _Steven Grant Rogers_ was still there, as black as it had ever been. Bucky thought he might faint with relief; he felt like he might be sick. He wiped at his eyes again. They were still leaking. 

"Are you okay?"

It wasn't Sam's voice. Bucky's head snapped up. 

There was a woman standing awkwardly beside the couch where he was sitting. She was young, with dark hair and dark eyes framed by large glasses. Her bright blue scrubs immediately identified her as a nurse. The name 'Kamala' was printed on her I.D. badge below what was actually a flattering picture of her face. 

"What?" Bucky croaked intelligently. He could feel the itch of dried saliva in a thin line from the side of his mouth. He rubbed at it. 

"Did you have a nightmare?" she asked. "Because it looked like you dream was pretty bad." 

"Oh, uh, yeah." Bucky scraped his hands through his hair. "It was. Pretty bad." 

"I'm sorry to hear that," she bit her lip. "Do you need anything? Like water or something?"

Bucky shook his head and managed to pull the vestiges of a smile up from somewhere. "I'll be okay." 

"Well, it makes sense that you'd have a bad dream," she said. "I mean, with your soulmate in the ICU after being shot." 

Bucky startled at her words. _How did she know?_ "Soulmate?"

"Yeah," she indicated the uncovered Name on his wrist. "Steven Grant Rogers. That's who you're waiting for, right?"

"Yeah." Bucky nodded. What she was saying finally penetrated the nightmare-induced fog in his brain and he sat up attentively. "Yeah, I'm waiting for Steve. I can go see him?"

"Yeah," she said. "I mean, the doctor said that he shouldn't have visitors that weren't close family, so we have to tell all the cops when they arrive that they have to come back tomorrow. But you're his soulmate, so…" She shrugged. 

Bucky stood. "That's great, that I can go see him." He had a sudden flashback to his dream: Steve's head lolling back as a final breath left his lungs. He shuddered. 

"You won't be able to stay long," Kamala warned as she led Bucky through the hallway that connected the waiting room to the ICU. "Sergeant Rogers lost a lot of blood and his femur was kind of destroyed by the bullet, so they did an ORIF procedure. Oh that's—"

"An open reduction, internal fixation," Bucky said. "I know."

"Right, you're a paramedic." She looked back at him. "I'm not used to talking to family who're also health care people. You know?"

Bucky nodded absently. He couldn't stop thinking about his dream, the images of blood pouring out of the bullet hole in Steve's leg, his helplessness to make it stop. 

But he had been able to do something. He and Sam had stopped Steve's bleeding and gotten him to the hospital in time. He didn't have a clue why he would've dreamed that he hadn't. 

Except in his dream Steve looked exactly like he did when Bucky had left him fifteen years ago. Bucky hadn't even waited long enough to know if Steve was going to live or die from his illness. He hadn't told Steve who he really was until after Steve had been shot, and only because Steve guessed first. The guilt felt like a stone in Bucky's stomach. He really was a coward.

"Anyway, here we are," Kamala said, totally ignorant to Bucky's internal turmoil. She stopped in front of Steve's room. The sliding glass door had been left open, probably to help Kamala hear if anything was going horribly wrong inside. She grinned a 'thank you' at the nurse who'd been sitting at the desk in front of Steve's doorway, clearly covering for her. She turned back to Bucky. "Just a couple minutes okay? He's still sleeping anyway, but still, don't stay too long." 

Bucky showed his understanding and she sat down at the desk. The ICU patients had one-on-one care from their nurse, so they were never that far away. Carefully Bucky stepped through the open door, trying to tread softly in his steel-toed boots.

Steve was lying on the white single bed in the middle of the room surrounded by tubes and wires, with nasal cannula supplying oxygen just under his nose. He looked far too pale against the white sheets and the white hospital gown that covered his shoulders. The only colour immediately visible was the red blood flowing from an I.V. bag through a tube into the inner elbow of Steve's left arm. 

Steve looked so much like he had in Bucky's dream that for a second Bucky actually felt light-headed with disorientation. It took him far too long to recognize that this Steve was clearly older and much larger than the sixteen year old he'd dreamt about. 

But Steve's breathing was still too shallow for Bucky's liking, and he was still connected to far too much medical equipment. His eyelashes looked strangely dark against his waxen skin. 

Steve looked like he was dying. 

Bucky rubbed at the _Steven Grant Rogers_ on his wrist, his eyes flicking back and forth between Steve's ashen features and the Name, searching for reassurance that the letters were still black. 

But the words wouldn't lighten unless Steve actually died. Steve could be dying in front of Bucky right now and he'd never know. Steve could be _dying_ and Bucky would be forced to watch, just like he was forced to watch when he was seventeen and Steve's lungs were filling up with fluid.

Steve had been pale then, too. Pale and breathing too shallowly, and lying in a hospital bed with tubes all over him…

Bucky's heart started to pound: a sickening rhythm that thudded through his chest and into his head, cancelling all thought except for a desperate need to get away. 

He fled.

* * *

He ran down the twelve flights of stairs to the main floor and was outside the emergency department before he knew what he was doing. 

He stopped short just past the doors, shocked by the bright light of late morning and the penetrating cold of the February day. It took him a moment to remember that they'd brought Steve in early that morning when it'd still been dark. It was only natural that dawn would be followed by daylight. It might feel like time had stopped with his soulmate being shot, but the world still kept turning. 

Bucky stood on the pavement, breath misting in the cold and he shivered. He'd left his jacket…somewhere the night before. Maybe in the ambulance? His ambulance. He needed to find it and bring it back to the station for the dayshift. Bucky checked his watch and was alarmed to see that it was nearly nine a.m. He must have been asleep for almost two hours before he went to see Steve—

He couldn’t think about it.

Bucky broke into a jog as he went looking for the ambulance. Officer Morita had been the one to drop them off with Steve. He'd probably just parked the ambulance where it usually went around the side from the ED. It would be there, and then he could drive it back to the station and sign off of the shift and go home to sleep. 

Sleep sounded good. Maybe. If he didn’t dream anymore. 

He reached into the cargo pocket of his tac pants for the ambulance keys. But his pocket was empty. He stopped walking and checked his pocket again. Then his other pocket, then all his pockets on his pants and his shirt, then he checked them all again. He didn't have the keys. He didn't know where the keys were. His hands were shaking. Where were the keys? Did he leave them in his jacket pocket? But he'd left his jacket in the ambulance. 

Where was his ambulance?

There were a couple of ambulances in the bay, but neither of them had the unit number of the vehicle he and Sam had been assigned the night before. They'd driven that ambulance to the call where they'd found Steve on the sidewalk. His leg shattered by a bullet and blood pouring—

"Stop." Bucky pressed his hands to the throbbing pulse in his temples. He couldn't think about Steve now. He needed to find his ambulance. And Sam. Sam would know where his ambulance was. 

Where the fuck was Sam? He needed to find Sam. 

Bucky was trembling, His breath was too fast and his heart was pounding. _I'm just cold_ , he thought. Like Steve's body after he'd lost so much blood…

He couldn't breathe. It was like the air had thickened with the frigid temperatures and it was now impossible to move it into his lungs. He staggered, hitting his back against the wall of the hospital, the brick rough through his uniform shirt. He slid down until he was sitting on the sidewalk, the cold of the pavement seeping through his uniform and settling into his skin. It made him think of how white Steve's skin had been, and then all he could think about was Steve bleeding out on the pavement, begging Jamie not to leave him. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his fists against his temples. 

Steve was dying. He was in the ICU dying, and there was nothing Bucky could do to save him. It was like the past fifteen years had never happened. He was just as terrified and just as helpless to help his soulmate as he'd ever been. Steve was still dying and Bucky was still running and he'd never, ever be able to escape this pain. 

"Bucky? Are you alright?" 

Bucky recoiled sharply, banging his head against the wall. It hurt and he made an involuntary noise of pain.

"Sorry," Clint said as he took a step back. Natasha was next to him. "Didn't mean to frighten you." 

Bucky just looked at him. He couldn't understand what Clint and Natasha were doing there, or the officer behind them. He tried to formulate the words to ask, but his mind was blank. 

"Are you okay?" Natasha asked him. 

He blinked. He couldn't find his ambulance or his partner, and his soulmate was dying upstairs. How the hell was he meant to answer that question?

"Bucky?" The younger officer stepped closer. It was the rookie that Steve had tried to protect from the shooter. He couldn't remember her name. "Why are you out here without a jacket?"

That he could answer. "I was looking for Sam." His teeth were chattering. 

"Sam?" Natasha exchanged a glance with Clint. "He went home. He said that he'd texted you. Didn't he text you?"

"Text?"

"You know, on your phone?"

Bucky hadn't checked his phone. He wasn't even sure he had it. Had he left it in his jacket? His jacket was in his ambulance, which he couldn't find. "I can't find my ambulance." 

Clint and Natasha exchanged another look. "I think you're really cold. Let's get you inside," Clint said, and in one fluid movement he and Natasha pulled him to his feet.

Bucky really, _really_ didn't want to go back into the hospital, but he wasn't in any position to resist. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly, and that his shaking wasn't just because he was cold. He was breathing too fast, and his thoughts were racing in time with his pulse. _I’m having a panic attack_ he thought numbly. The realization did nothing to help. 

The officers brought him inside and sat him down on a chair somewhere out of the flow of people, Natasha on one side of him and the rookie on the other. Clint muttered something about coffee and took off. 

The rookie started rubbing his back, slow, gentle strokes that felt incredibly warm after his time outside. 

"Just breathe," she said quietly, head bent towards his. 

He leaned into her touch, ashamed that he couldn’t get his own breathing under control. Ashamed that he was using her for support when he couldn’t even remember her damn name. 

"It'll be okay," she whispered. 

Bucky shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. He couldn't stop shaking. He was having a fucking panic attack and he couldn't get himself under control. He was a fucking paramedic who'd helped probably a thousand patients having panic attacks since he started his career. He knew you just needed to ground yourself and breathe deeply and he was trying. _Goddamn it_ he was trying! Why the fuck couldn't he get himself under control? 

"Want me to get one of the nurses?" Natasha asked. "Maybe a doctor?"

Bucky shook his head again. "No," he choked out. "No, please." 

"Give him a minute," the rookie said. "I think he's having a panic attack. Just give him time." 

"Panic attack?" Natasha repeated. "Wanda, you sure?"

"Yes," Wanda said, (Wanda! Her fucking name was Wanda.) Her hand never stopped moving on Bucky's back. "He feels cold," Wanda continued. "Natasha could you find him a blanket?"

"On it." Natasha jumped up, apparently relieved to be able to do something other than just sit staring as Bucky fell apart. "I'm going to call Sam as well." 

"Perfect," Wanda said.

 _No, don't_. Bucky wanted to shout after Natasha. He was used to being in control. He didn't want Sam to see him like this. But it was like he couldn't get the words to leave his tongue. 

"My brother used to get panic attacks sometimes. After the war," Wanda said conversationally when the sound of Natasha's boots had faded. "We were both about ten years old when the civil war started in Sokovia. A bomb hit our house and killed our parents. We were separated and he thought I was dead, too. Even after we found each other in the refugee camp he couldn’t forget his fear. It took years before he didn't have panic attacks because of it." 

Bucky didn't know much about the war in Sokovia, but he'd been in war zones when he was a medic in the army. He'd seen people whose entire lives had been destroyed in an instant, and how long it could take to heal from that. He'd never met her brother, but hell yeah he understood that kind of pain. 

It was his goddamned _job_ to help people with that kind of pain. 

He was a fucking paramedic. He'd been helping people with that kind of pain for over ten years. Wanda was in pain right now thinking about her brother, and all he was doing was falling apart. 

"Just focus on my words." Wanda's voice was calm, the lilt of her accent interesting and soothing all at once. "And imagine that you're someplace where you feel safe and happy. Someplace good."

 _I'm with Steve_ , Bucky thought immediately. He could easily picture one of a million memories of him and Steve: Watching a movie together, or walking through the park, or eating ice cream on the stoop in front of their apartment. Being with Steve had always made him feel safe, and happy, and whole. 

He took a shuddering breath that finally reached the bottom of his lungs. 

"That's it," Wanda said to him encouragingly. "Keep breathing. Just like that." So he did. Breath after breath for what felt like hours until the fog in his head started to clear and the pounding of his heart faded to the background. "Good job." She smiled at him as if he'd done something really impressive instead of breathe like a normal person. 

He wanted to die of embarrassment. "I'm sorry," he said, running his hands through his hair. His hairline was damp with his sweat. He hadn't showered or shaved or changed his clothes or even brushed his teeth since before his shift the night before. He was suddenly, horribly aware of how disheveled he must look, or that he probably smelled. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I don't normally—"

"It's fine." Wanda's smile was warm. "Panic attacks are nothing to be ashamed of. It's a normal reaction to an abnormal event." 

Bucky smirked without humour. "What abnormal event? I know Steve—Sergeant Rogers—getting shot was pretty bad, but I've dealt with worse. Gunshots aren't an abnormal event in this town. There's no reason why I should be freaking out." Without meaning to, an image of his dream popped into his head and he trembled.

"But Steve is your soulmate," Wanda said. 

Bucky's head shot up before he remembered that he'd never picked his cuff up after he'd torn it off his wrist in the ICU. He looked down. _Steven Grant Rogers_ was there on his forearm, completely uncovered for the world to see. 

"Yeah," he agreed finally. "Yeah, he is." 

"I'm guessing this has something to do with why you told me things were complicated?" 

"He actually doesn't know," Bucky admitted, voice rough. "I never told him." 

"You never told him?"

Bucky shook his head, and then, just like he'd told Sam, he told her everything. She sat quietly as he spoke, and just like Sam, there was no judgement in her eyes when he finished. 

"I'm just so afraid," Bucky admitted in a whisper. "What if he dies? I don't think I could live if he dies." 

"Maybe you can, and maybe you can't," Wanda said with an enviable practicality. "But when he does die, and he will because that is the fate of us all, will you feel better for not having loved him?"

Bucky blinked at the directness of her statement. He'd spent fifteen years trying not to love Steve Rogers, trying to distance himself from his soulmate so that he'd never have to feel so helpless and desperate again. But all his herculean effort had been for nothing. The pain of seeing him in a hospital was exactly the same as it had always been. He hadn't saved himself from anything. 

"No," Bucky said truthfully. "I've avoided him for fifteen years, and this still feels like shit." 

"Maybe you have a chance to fix this," she said.

Bucky smirked. "You sound just like Sam." 

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said. "Natasha seems to like him a lot." 

"There's a lot to like," Bucky agreed, glad the topic had changed to something more neutral. He knew Wanda was right. Hell, he'd still be with Steve now if his unexpected panic attack hadn't blown him out of the water. But he also knew that he was in no shape to go upstairs and try to see Steve again. God knew he could use a hot meal and a shower and at least four hours of rest before he even attempted to brave that hospital room. 

The thought made him wince. He still hadn't found his ambulance, or even his goddamn jacket. There was no way he could get home in February without it. He started searching his pockets again, this time looking for his phone. At least if he found that he could arrange for an Uber to come get him. 

His phone wasn't in his pant pockets. It must be with his jacket with his keys, and apparently his wallet. Unless Wanda took pity on him he'd have to sleep in the waiting room until he could get ahold of Sam to come rescue him. He licked his lips. 

"Um—" he started, which was when Natasha came back around the corner with Sam in tow. 

"Jesus," Sam said to Bucky. "I must have texted you a million times to let me know when you woke up. Why the fuck didn't you call me?"

"I don't have my phone." 

Sam closed his eyes and sighed. "Did you leave it in your jacket pocket?"

"I think so?"

"Well, good news is your jacket's back in your locker at the station. We can swing by to get it." 

Bucky stood. "Swing by? Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you home." 

Bucky blinked, relief and guilt washing through him. He badly wanted to leave the hospital, but Sam must have been asleep when Natasha called. "You don't have to do that." 

"Yeah, I do," Sam said. "You're my friend."

"I called him for a reason," Natasha said. "You're in no shape to get home on your own."

"I have to get the ambulance—"

"I took it back already," Sam said. "I texted you…never mind." 

Clint reappeared, a tray of coffees in his hands. "I brought coffee," he said unnecessarily. "Wow, you look like shit," he said to Bucky. "You really should go home." 

Bucky sighed. "Yeah. Okay." 

Sam turned to Natasha and gave her a quick kiss. "I'll see you later?"

She nodded, taking her coffee from Clint. "Me, Clint and Wanda are going to go to the ICU to check on Steve, but then I'm going to go home, take a pain killer and go to sleep. But maybe we can meet up tonight?"

"I'd like that," Sam said. 

They started to head out; the officers towards the elevators and Bucky and Sam to the underground parking. Involuntarily, Bucky looked up at the ceiling as they walked. Picturing where Steve was convalescing twelve floors above. 

Sam put his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "He'll be okay," he said softly. "He's had a rough night. You both have. Give him some time to rest and recover. Go see him tomorrow."

"Okay." Bucky mustered a small smile. 

Sam smiled back. "There's my boy."

* * *

Bucky slept for six hours and woke up feeling almost like a normal version of himself.

It was only mid-February, and the early dark of winter had changed the sky from dusk to night by the time Bucky reached Steve's room. 

Kamala, Steve's nurse, was just ending her shift, looking more tired and less enthusiastic than she had that morning. But she still cheerfully updated Bucky on Steve's condition and told him he could go in to see his soulmate. 

She liked to use that word a lot. 

Bucky thanked her and slipped inside. The lights in Steve's room had been turned down, and the space was dipped in shadow. Steve was lying on his bed with his eyes closed, and Bucky took a moment to assess him. He was still too pale, but his skin had lost its ghostly hue and a bit of pink had returned to his lips. The nasal cannula had been removed, as had the tube feeding blood directly into his arm. His breathing was deep and even. Kamala had tucked Steve's blanket around his shoulders to help keep him warm, but his pulse was visible in the notch at the base of his throat. It was beating, solid and steady. Bucky let out a deep breath of relief. 

Quietly he moved one of the chairs in the room to the edge of Steve's bed and sat down, stretching out his legs. Seeing Steve looking better had loosened something inside of Bucky and suddenly he barely had the energy to hold himself upright. He knew the guilt and shame was still brewing inside him, but right that second all that Bucky could feel was relief. Maybe Steve would forgive him like he said he would, or maybe he wouldn't. But he was alive. It was enough.

As if sensing his thoughts, Steve's eyes blinked open. Bucky was immediately lost in their intense blue. He'd forgotten how beautiful Steve's eyes were. He'd made himself forget how much he missed looking into them. 

"Jamie." Steve grinned dopily. 

"Hi, Steve," Bucky said. 

"You are Jamie, aren't you?" Steve peered at him, his pupils blown wide from the narcotics controlling his pain. 

Bucky nodded. "I am. I’m Jamie. I'm sorry I told you I wasn't." 

Steve grinned again. "Jamie!" Then Bucky's words seemed to sink in. "But you said you weren't. I remember. Before I got shot. I asked if I knew you and you said no. Why'd you say no? Why'd you lie?"

"Because I thought you'd hate me for leaving you," Bucky replied honestly. "When we were teenagers." 

"I'd never hate you. I love you." Steve's smile was brilliant. 

Bucky swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I love you too." It felt good to say it out loud. It was something he'd never permitted himself to do before, back when they were friends. He'd loved Steve since them moment they'd met. He'd never stopped. 

"You're my soulmate," Steve said. He lifted up his right hand to show Bucky the _James Buchanan Barnes_ written there in Bucky's scrawl. 

"I know." Bucky lifted up his arm to show Steve his Name. "And you're mine." 

Steve's smile got impossibly wider. "I'm your soulmate?" He swung his hand towards Bucky, managing to connect with the Name on his wrist. Bucky could feel the warmth of Steve's touch blazing through his whole body; the most comforting kind of heat. It was the feeling of their souls connecting after far too long apart. It left them both gasping. 

"Steve," Bucky breathed. He had to get closer. He stood and moved to the side of Steve's bed, close enough that he could stroke his hand through Steve's blond hair. Steve's hand was still wrapped around his other wrist.

"Why'd you leave?" Steve whispered, and now his eyes were full of anguish. "Why'd you go?"

"Because I was scared," Bucky repeated what he'd said to Steve the night before. "Because you were in the hospital and I thought you were dying and I couldn't—" His voice broke on a sob. 

"It's okay," Steve said, rubbing his thumb up and down Bucky's wrist. "It's okay. Don't cry Jamie. Don’t cry." 

Bucky wiped at his face. "It's not okay. You were my best friend Steve. My _best friend!_ And you were sick and in the hospital and…and my _soulmate_. And even though you needed me, I left. I left you. And then I didn't contact you for fifteen years. Hell, I wouldn't even be here except that you got shot. I'm a coward, Steve. I'm a fucking coward. I might be your soulmate but I'm not even good enough to be your friend. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Stevie. I'm so, so sorry." He wiped at his eyes with the side of his free hand.

Steve grinned at him again. "You called me Stevie." 

Bucky huffed out a small laugh. "That's what you got from what I said? That I called you Stevie?"

"After you left, and your mom told me you'd joined the army, I thought I'd never hear anyone call me that again. But you just did." 

"I never should've left." Bucky felt desolate, nearly overwhelmed with his remorse. "And I can't believe you're still talking to me. Not after what I did. I bailed as soon as things got tough. They got hard and I ran."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "You did. I was sick and you left me. That was a really shitty thing to do." 

Hearing Steve say Bucky's crime out loud felt like a kick to the stomach. But it was also a strange kind of relief. Bucky had been waiting fifteen years for Steve to find out what he'd done. "It was really shitty. A real soulmate would've stayed with you. No matter what, but I didn't do that. I’m a coward for leaving when you needed me the most. I was scared and a coward and I left. I'm so sorry I didn't do better." The words sounded trite and wholly inadequate, but they were all Bucky had.

"It was terrible when you left," Steve said. "It tore me up inside." 

"I'm sorry." 

"It hurt so bad…I hoped I'd die from it, because I didn't want to live if it meant that kind of pain." 

Bucky gasped in horror. "Steve?"

Steve waved the hand that wasn't still gripping Bucky's wrist. "I got over it. I had to. My mother was sick and she needed me. I couldn't give up just because I lost you." 

"Of course not," Bucky murmured. 

"In fact, I probably should thank you for leaving."

" _Thank_ me?"

"Yeah. If you hadn't left I probably wouldn't have worked so hard to get well. I was so hurt and angry—well it was very motivating." Steve smirked. "Living well is the best revenge." 

Bucky shook his head, guilt curdling in his stomach. "Don't try to make it something good, Stevie. I let you down. There's nothing good about that." 

"In sickness and in health," Steve quoted. "For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."

"Those are wedding vows." 

"I know." 

"I don't understand." 

"You left because you were scared I was going to die?" 

Bucky nodded. "Yes. And it was a really horrible thing to—"

"I think a lot of people feel that way," Steve cut him off. "I think that's why traditional wedding vows are written like that. To remind people that relationships are scary, but you should hang in there, anyway." 

"But I didn't." Bucky dropped his gaze. "I didn't keep those vows." 

"Well, not _then._ " 

"No." Bucky was still staring at the floor. Afraid to see the incrimination in Steve's eyes.

Steve tugged on his wrist until Bucky was forced to meet his gaze or get a bruise from the bedrails. "But you kept them now. My nurse said I nearly died because of that bullet. But you saved me. I was dying and you saved my life." 

"Of course I did," Bucky said. "It's my _job._ " 

"But I was _dying_ ," Steve repeated. 

"It's my _job_." Bucky said again. "What, did you really think I was going to let you bleed to death?"

"Was it your job to come back to see me? Twice? My nurse told me about the first time," Steve explained at Bucky's incredulous look. 

"No, but—"

"I nearly died and you came back," Steve said, like it meant anything. 

Bucky made a face. "Of course I came back! You're my soulmate! There was _no way_ I was going to abandon you a second time!" 

"Exactly," Steve said smugly. 

"Exactly what?"

"You came back. Even though you could've left another time. You didn't." Steve's grin was still smug.

Bucky opened his mouth to argue, but then shut it with a snap. Steve was right. He had come back. Even though he'd had a fucking _panic attack_ after seeing Steve in the hospital, he'd come back to be with the man he loved. He looked at Steve, eyes wide. It hadn't made up for what he'd done, but it was a start. 

Steve looked back, gaze sharp despite the narcotics. "Don't you _ever_ fucking leave me again."

Bucky shifted so that Steve's grip changed from his wrist to his hand and he held on tight. "Never."

"It doesn't matter how scared you are. It doesn't matter. You're my soulmate and you will not leave me again." Steve's grip on his hand was almost painfully tight. 

"I will never leave you," Bucky promised. 

"Until death us do part." Steve was holding himself ridged, waiting for Bucky's response. 

"Until death us do part," Bucky repeated, tone hushed. 

Steve nodded decisively, then his eyes crinkled at the corners as the smile crept back. "I think it's traditional to kiss after saying that." 

Bucky laughed. He leaned over Steve's bedrail and kissed him.

* * *

The wedding was perfect. 

Bucky sighed in contentment as he thought back to the lovely ceremony. Natasha had looked gorgeous in her off-white dress and Sam had looked like a damn GQ model in his sharp-edged black tuxedo. But the best look of the ceremony had been the one she and Sam had given each other when Clint had walked Natasha down the aisle and placed her hand in her soulmate's. 

Bucky may have cried when they exchanged their vows. Just a little. 

The bride and groom were getting their pictures done before the reception, and even though both Steve and Bucky were in the wedding party and would be called shortly, they had a small reprieve to just be together before more wedding duties pulled them back in. 

They had taken the opportunity to walk along the path that led through the venue's elaborate gardens, bright and fragrant in the warm June afternoon. Bucky was holding Steve's hand and walking slow enough that Steve didn't need to struggle to keep up while using his cane. He was still healing, but he was gaining back strength every day. His physiotherapist thought he'd be back to normal duties by the fall. 

"Natasha looked gorgeous, didn't she? I can't believe how different she looks out of uniform." 

"Not as gorgeous as you." 

Steve cocked an eyebrow. "You like the tux, huh?" Steve was wearing a tux just like Sam's. 

"I like you," Bucky said as Steve kissed him. 

They stayed like that for a few moments, lazily kissing in the warm afternoon sun, until Steve winced and shifted his weight. "Time to start walking." 

Bucky nodded, picking up Steve's hand again as they continued along the path. "I really liked their ceremony." 

"Me too." Steve squeezed Bucky's hand. "I have a confession to make. I got a little teary when they exchanged vows." 

Bucky laughed. "Yeah, me too." 

"For better or for worse," Steve quoted. He playfully nudged Bucky's shoulder. 

"For richer or for poorer," Bucky quoted as he nudged Steve's shoulder back. 

"In sickness and in health," Steve continued the game with another nudge.

Bucky paused, awash with shame. He'd always be guilt-ridden for the way he'd abandoned Steve when they were younger. But he'd been there for Steve in every step of his recovery; doing as much as he could to make his soulmate feel cared for and loved. He'd meant his promise. He'd never leave his soulmate again. 

"Bucky?" 

"Until death do us part," Bucky said with probably more vehemence than the game required. 

Steve smirked. "You may now kiss the bride." They started kissing again, and Bucky let his guilt dissipate under the delicious sensation of Steve's lips on his. 

"Are we married now?" Bucky joked when Steve finally pulled away. He blushed as he realized what he'd just said. He and Steve had been together for just over four months, but it was nothing compared to how long they'd been apart. It was probably way too soon to be talking about marriage. 

"Not yet," Steve said seriously. "I need to propose first." And then as Bucky watched in shock Steve dropped his cane to the ground and somehow lowered himself onto one knee, grimacing in pain the whole time. 

"What are you doing?" Bucky said faintly. 

"James Buchanan Barnes," Steve said as if Bucky hadn't spoken. "You are my soulmate, and the love of my life. When you left me at sixteen—" he ignored Bucky's involuntary whimper at the reminder—"I thought my life was over. But instead I grew stronger. Both physically and mentally, until I had finally grown into the type of soulmate who could actually make you feel safe enough to stay. I love you Jamie. I love your courage and your fear; your strengths and your flaws; I love every part of you and I want to be yours, forever. So I'm asking you Jamie, will you marry me?"

Bucky's throat was clogged with tears. Steve wanted him. Steve _loved_ him, despite what he'd done. 

"You really trust me?" Bucky asked, voice breaking.

Steve's mouth curved upwards. "With my life." 

"And you forgive me?" The last word was definitely a sob. 

"Always and forever," Steve said softly. 

"Then yes," Bucky said, and now he was beaming despite his tears. "Yes, Steven Grant Rogers, my soulmate. I will marry you." 

"Thank God you said yes," Steve said, "because my leg is fucking killing me." 

Bucky burst out laughing and went to help Steve to his feet. 

Steve's hand clasped Bucky's forearm, over his Name, and a sense of _rightness_ settled through Bucky. This was the man the Universe had chosen for him. His soulmate.

Steve pulled him in close, temples touching. "I love you," Steve murmured against his cheek.

"Until death us do part," Bucky murmured back. 

And if Wanda noticed the grass stain on the knee of Steve's tuxedo when she came to fetch them for the next set of wedding photos, she didn't say anything. 

END.


End file.
